What have the artists said about the song?

Fat Joe: “I knew I had to do a song with Big Punisher on his album. I also knew the world was bigger than New York, so we had to do a track that I knew they would play on the West Coast. When Snoop Dogg 1st came out, & him & Dr. Dre did that ‘Twinz (Deep Cover ‘98),’ that was the hardest shit. & nobody had fucked with it.

“So I said, ‘Yo Pun, let’s go back & forth on this bitch so I can introduce you to the game.’ So we sat down & wrote it. Back & forth, we’re going in. Hard. We wrote it together.

“I ain’t bug out when he first said the ‘Dead in the middle of Little Italy…’ rhyme. That wasn’t even a rhyme. He used to play around & say [that tongue twister], just like he used to walk around going, ‘Packin’ the Mac in the back of the Ac, packin’ the Mac in the back of the Ac.’ These were like jokes to him.

“I had to argue with him to put ‘Dead in the middle of Little Italy…’ in the song. I was like, ‘That’s the hardest shit on earth.’ He was like, ‘Are you crazy? That’s a fuckin’ joke. Niggas will laugh at me. Are you serious?’ Then he did it, & it was the illest shit.

“Snoop gave us his blessing & came & did the ‘Deep Cover’ video. & no disrespect, no 1 can ever say anything about that song. That shit is a body. Get the white sheets out. There’s no way around it. That’s a historic track. Legendary forever.”